whiptail: journal of the single-line poem
  • Home
  • MERCH!
  • Info
    • About
    • Contact
    • Statistics
    • Submissions
    • Team
  • Read the Journal
  • Additional Features
    • Comments for Contributors
    • Contributor Interviews
    • Lizard Lounge >
      • Lizard Lounge - from the Issues
      • Lizard Lounge - Republished
    • Nominations
    • Sign Up To Read
    • Supporters

contributor interviews

Meet Joseph P. Wechselberger

11/16/2022

2 Comments

 
A very warm welcome from the whiptail Team. Tell us a little about yourself-your family, your hobbies, your dreams, or anything else you want readers to know about you, apart from being a haiku poet.
 
Thank you, Ms. Parashar.
 
I live in Browns Mills, NJ, and have been retired since March 2007. I worked for the United States Federal Government for 28 years and then for a private health care foundation for another 11-and-a-half years. I enjoy genealogy and have done several family trees, for myself and friends. My favorite author is Agatha Christie. Mysteries are my favorite genre. I have all her books and plays, and DVDs of all movies made from her stories.

 

What is something that people don't know about your poetry or poetry practice, process, or inspiration that you'd like to share?
 
I write every day. I always have a pad and pen nearby to jot thoughts and lines that come to me until they form a ku. I then transcribe them into Word and maintain electronic files of all my work, good or not, for future reference and editing. I also electronically keep track of all published poems in chronological order, noting the journal/blog/anthology, and issue/date.

 
What made you decide to try out haiku and/or tanka in one line versus their more popular enjambed formats? How does it feel different to you?
 
I was drawn to the monoku from reading poems by Marlene Mountain, Jim Kacian, and others. I find the form more freeing and organic than the enjambed versions. Monoku need to flow, to breathe, to develop like a current of air without the barrier of line breaks.
 


Many poets still struggle with the dilemma of whether a particular poem will work better as a one-line poem than the enjambed form and vice-versa. What is the deciding factor in your practice?
 
In my case, I allow the poems to decide for themselves. For example, this poem of mine was published in Bones, Issue 23:


 
ongoing commentary from the parrot snow


 
One-line allows the poem to mimic the parrot's continuous talking and squawking while snow falls outside. Line breaks in this instance would be awkward and create a stop and start that would make it jerky. My advice is, if you are not sure, try writing your poem as one, two or three lines and see which form has the best rhythm and flow, and provides the best effect.
 

 
It would be a great help to our readers if you could walk us through your writing process from conception to the eventual birth of a one-line poem. You are most welcome to take a one-line poem or two of yours to discuss, regarding how it came to be and/or process.

During Covid shutdown there came to be a reliance on virtual meetings and calls. I saw a commercial where a man was in a Zoom meeting and was getting himself some coffee when he realized in an oops moment that the others on the call could see he wasn't wearing trousers. This inspired me to write the following, which was published in Failed Haiku, Issue 65:
 


zoom meeting his unmade bed


 
I also gain inspiration from nature, memories, internet articles, photographs, essays, and reading others' works and points of view. The latter help me to expand how I see the world and express that in my poems.
 


Do you have any tips for aspiring poets of one-line forms?
 
Write daily, and Read, Read, Read. Read online and print journals like whiptail, Prune Juice, Kingfisher, Failed Haiku, Cold Moon Journal, Modern Haiku, and others; read essays and articles on the subject; and read the Red Moon anthologies, which include great examples of one-liners. Alan Summers did a wonderful article Travelling the single line of haiku / monoku / monotich on his Area 17 blogspot that may be read here.

 
I also find the works of the late Marlene Mountain to be helpful for any aspiring poet of one-line forms. Ms. Mountain was a groundbreaking poet who worked extensively with one-line arrangements. Here is the link to her website which contains a library of her poems and essays.

Joseph P. Wechselberger (he, him, his) lives in Browns Mills, NJ, USA. He is a member of the Haiku Society of America and began writing haiku and senryu in 2018. His work has been nominated for the 2021 and 2022 Touchstone Award for Individual Poems, and has been published in Acorn; Akitsu Quarterly; Blōō Outlier Journal; Bones; cattails; Charlotte Digregorios's Writer's Blog Daily Haiku; Cold Moon Journal; Failed Haiku; Five Fleas; Frogpond; Golden Triangle Haiku Contest 2022; Haiku Canada Review; The Haiku Poets of the Garden State New Jersey Botanical Garden Sign Project April 2022; Hedgerow; The Heron's Nest; Kingfisher; MahMight haiku journal; The Mainichi Haiku in English; Modern Haiku; Poetry Pea Journal of Haiku & Senryu; Presence; Prune Juice; Scarlet Dragonfly Journal; seashores; Shamrock Haiku Journal; Stardust; Time Haiku; tsuri-dōrō; ubu; Under the Basho; whiptail; Sucking Mangoes Naked: Erotic Haiku and Related Forms; Haiku 2022; and jar of rain: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2020.
Picture

2 Comments

    contributor interviews
    ​​

    Would you like to get to know our contributors a little better? Vandana Parashar, our feature columnist, has reached out and asked some of them a few questions about themselves and their writing practice. Enjoy!

    Picture

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022

    Categories

    All
    Alan Summers
    Alvin B. Cruz
    Brad Bennett
    Bruce H. Feingold
    Chuck Brickley
    Dan Schwerin
    Deborah A. Bennett
    Hemapriya Chellappan
    Jim Kacian
    Jo Balistreri
    John Hawkhead
    Joseph P. Wechselberger
    Julie Schwerin
    Lew Watts
    Marcie Wessels
    Margaret Walker
    Marianne Paul
    Michael Nickels-Wisdom
    Michele Root-Bernstein
    M. Shane Pruett
    Owen Bullock
    Pippa Phillips
    Polona Oblak
    Pravat Kumar Padhy
    Richa Sharma
    Roland Packer
    Ryland Shengzhi Li
    Shloka Shankar
    Tim Gardiner

    RSS Feed

facebook

​
whiptail 
 runs on coffee and passion. We don't charge submission fees because we don't believe in limiting whose voices get heard. If you like what we do, please consider a small donation to help with website costs.
.

Instagram

Listed at Duotrope
LINKTREE

Twitter

Picture
Our gracious thanks to Raghav Prashant Sundar for his work producing our numerous lizard graphics. Designs by Kat Lehmann & Robin Smith.


​
​
​ISSN 2769-5263
© Copyright 2021 - 2023 whiptail journal
Individual works are copyrighted by their respective authors.
​All Rights Reserved
  • Home
  • MERCH!
  • Info
    • About
    • Contact
    • Statistics
    • Submissions
    • Team
  • Read the Journal
  • Additional Features
    • Comments for Contributors
    • Contributor Interviews
    • Lizard Lounge >
      • Lizard Lounge - from the Issues
      • Lizard Lounge - Republished
    • Nominations
    • Sign Up To Read
    • Supporters